Fish
by Steam
Summary: She never did like fish. All right, that was an understatement - she was terrified of fish. So it probably wasn't the best idea to bring back fish for dinner.


"Nietzsche's bored!" Nietzsche whined, slumping against Elena's thigh. The assassin didn't seem to notice, as she was too preoccupied with testing her new crossbow.

"It happens," she replied, aiming the crossbow at a tree. With nothing worth shooting, she sighed and placed it back on the ground beside her.

"C'mon, there's gotta be something we can do!" The undine grabbed Elena's arm, pulling herself up to eye level.

"Why don't you play with your spear?"

"But that's boring! It's boring doing stuff by myself. C'mon! Let's go find something to do!"

"…Is there anything we can even do here?" It was a question that everyone knew the answer to, but she still asked it anyway. In between fights, meals and moving from camp to camp, soldiers had to make their own kind of entertainment.

"Well, we can find something!" She pulled on Elena's arm until her attention was caught by a passing Milanor. "It's boring around here! Do you have anything to do?"

"Eh?" The thief turned when he realized he was being talked to. "Well, Russell and I were just going off to hunt for some food…"

"Ah, Nietzsche wants to come!" She scooted over to him, grabbing the sleeve of his coat.

"All right. It's not like there's anything else to do…"

Elena watched them for a little while, sighing to herself and picking up her crossbow for what seemed to be the hundredth time. She would have loved to go with them, but due to the fact there was _hunting_involved…

When she was younger, she used to be terrified of the sound of a banango being opened because of the snapping sound the skin made when it was split open, and how it sounded like someone's neck being snapped apart. Even now, she was still uncomfortable with the sound—which was unfortunate, as they were a popular fruit among the Royal Army.

Now, she couldn't hunt. It was a bit ironic—she was a hardened soldier, a former member of the Special Forces, but she still couldn't bring herself to kill or eat an animal.

In a rare display of frustration, she threw the crossbow on the ground, and then sighed and rested her head in her hands. Another night of loading and emptying and reloading and emptying and reloading and emptying and reloading…

No, she had to do something better…once again, she picked up the crossbow and got on her feet. Maybe she would go whittle down some more bolts.

* * *

"Heeey! We're back!"

An enthusiastic Nietzsche bounced along, carrying along a basket that was filled with something. Milanor and Russell followed after her, both in good spirits, but they didn't seem to be carrying any game with them…

"You wouldn't believe it!" Milanor explained to Elena. "We found this giant lake, and Nietzsche just jumped in and started catching all these fish! She's a natural!" Well, that was a given, seeing how she had been raised in water for her entire life. "After all this time of eating chicken, we're going to have a nice fish-fry tonight!"

At this, Elena's stomach twisted. "Oh…that's good."

"Check it out!" Nietzsche showed the contents of the basket to Elena, much to her discomfort. She gulped, feeling the ghastly stare of their round, empty eyes watching her. She noticed their mouths were open—gaping pits of nothingness. It vaguely reminded her of some of her former squad leaders—their mouths were always open; except they were always cursing and yelling at her, always for things she didn't do right. As much as she hated, hated, hated fish, at least they couldn't talk.

Perhaps she should have told them that they scared the crap out of her. She couldn't tell what species these fish were, but they were all the same to her—disgusting and wrong.

"You can't…" she muttered slowly at the beaming undine. "I can't eat…"

Nietzsche seemed confused for a moment. "Eh? What's wrong?"

"Oh yeah…" Milanor winced. "She's a vegetarian. Well, it doesn't mean the rest of us can't eat them!"

"Yeah, you can just eat the vegetables. You can have mine!"

Elena nodded, smiling nervously. She decided she wouldn't even sit anywhere near anyone who was eating fish.

Either way, she didn't bother arguing. It was pointless. Everyone else's mouths were always bigger and stronger—they always won.

Still, she couldn't get that nasty image of the fish staring at her with its blank, empty eyes.

* * *

Silently, Elena slipped into her tent. She lay down, making sure to leave about four-fifths left for the other two girls she shared the tent with, pulled a blanket up, and closed her eyes.

The haunting image of the fish faded away, stolen away by the blackness. However, her vision soon returned, taking her to another place.

She was surrounded by darkness, with no ground beneath her feet. She looked around wildly, then froze with horror.

It was a fish, possibly a hundred times her size, floating above her in the empty blackness—no, _coming_towards her with its mouth hanging open. The mouth landed precisely over her.

She couldn't see, but she could feel herself standing on something cold and soft. The stench was unbearable, and she could barely stand, so she staggered back against a soft, fleshy wall.

She felt like she was dissolving. It wasn't digestion, but it was more of like being absorbed directly into the fish's body. She would have screamed if her mouth still existed—

—and when she did have a mouth again, it couldn't move. She saw the dark walls of the tent as her hazy vision returned. Her scales were pressed against a wooden chopping board.

Wait…scales?

She suddenly realized that she was the fish now! All she could do was sit and wait, unmovable eyes staring up. Inevitably, someone would come in here and kill her without realizing it, and they would be left with a _fish_in her body.

She woke up with a choked scream, finding herself alone in what was thankfully her tent. She looked at her hands, her body—thankfully, she was still human. She held her head in her hands, feeling cold sweat on her forehead.

She knew what she had to do now.

Slowly, she got up and crawled out of the tent. She ducked into the tent where the fish were being stored. There was an odd, wet, damp feeling to the place that made her skin crawl, along with the pungent smell of fish that made her eyes water.

Elena rocked in place for a while with her eyes squeezed shut, a hand clamped over her mouth. Nobody had taken any notice of her so far…if everything worked out, nobody would know that she had even come in here.

She opened her eyes to the dark, cool tent. Almost as if it had been waiting for her, she found it—a knife, just lying on the ground.

Elena picked it up.

And then she went into a mindless frenzy.

She stabbed. She stabbed again. And again. And again. And again.

God, it felt so _good_!

She cut them all up so that they would be unrecognizable when they were found. Nobody would know it was her—after all, she was the vegetarian! She wouldn't have any business coming in here, so maybe they would all think it was an animal that had come in here. It would just be an unresolved mystery, something everyone would probably laugh and wonder about when the war was over, and no one would realize that all this time, it had been her—

Light suddenly filled the tent.

"What the hellare you doing, Elena?"

Staring at her from outside was Milanor, staring at Elena as though she had committed a murder. Elena slowly looked up, her gaze shifting between him and the pile of flesh and scales in between her fingers—

And she screamed.

That night, the Royal Army had chicken for supper.

* * *

A/N: I've returned after a little break. This is likely the most absurd story I've ever written. It started as some really weird and absolutely pointless drabble that became a short drabble-esque one-shot. The writing is a little lackluster to me (maybe because it was originally a drabble) but I liked the concept so I decided to post it.

I sincerely doubt that Elena has a fear of fish. But I couldn't resist writing this after I had a silly mental image of a giant fish haunting her since a dead fish is so…useless. And besides, Elena's too…polite? complacent? etc? so I think she needed to vent some bottled-up frustrations here. Hehe.

and yes I know that I could have easily made this an original story but I didn't want to so there since I recently had to write a bunch of original stories for school so be quiet D:


End file.
